Moral bioenhancements and the future of utilitarianism

Utilitarianism has been able to respond to many of the objections raised against it by undertaking a major revision of its theory. Basically, this consisted of recognising that its early normative propositions were only viable for agents very different from flesh-and-blood humans. They then deduced that, given human limitations, it was most useful for everyone if moral agents did not behave as utilitarians and habitually followed certain rules. Important recent advances in neurotechnology suggest that some of these human limitations can be overcome. In this article, after presenting some possible neuro-enhancements, we seek to answer the questions, first, of whether they should be accepted by a utilitarian ethic and, second, if accepted, to what extent they would invalidate the revision that allowed them to escape the objections.

Green death: sustainability and the administration of the dead

This article explores changing American death care – the handling of the dead body and its materiality beyond death – in the context of US-based power relations over administration of human remains. The article briefly surveys efforts to make the afterlife of the dead more ‘sustainable’. I argue that this expanding governance entails intensified bioremediation: the reuse and reprocessing of dead bodies/parts, intensified forms of material-biological extraction, and the conversion of afterlife to forms of biovalue beyond death. First, some disposal efforts encourage an economy of body/parts and a utilitarian ethic of ‘no remains’. Accordingly, the afterlife is not ‘the end’ but a renewable material resource and opportunity to economize the body in death and put the dead body to work. Second, a range of practices now reimagine death as an opportunity for personal legacy and redeem the dead body’s decomposition as natural/as part of the natural world. Bioremediation in this case conceptually recuperates death into life so that death is not wasted; instead, the corpse serves as a material input for nature and a vehicle for personal ‘biopresence’. The article then considers some of the paradoxes and costs of greening the dead and outlines future research directions that might advance our understanding of the ways new sustainable disposal and commemorative technologies of the dead entrench racism and impact civil, consumer, and environmental rights. How bodies affect our environments today will impact people and landscapes in years to come. Because US governance of the dead has historically entailed the differential treatment of bodies after life, the article critically reflects on ‘death equity’ issues that operate across the living and the dead. The article concludes by querying how conduct for the dead might advance social justice through a material politics of human remains.

La economía moderna: Esa extraña “ciencia” del vicio virtuoso. / The modern economics: This strange “science” of virtuous vice.

La Economía Moderna o “científica” se desarrolló sobre un supuesto religioso: la naturaleza humana es egoísta. Así, la vertiente ortodoxa de la disciplina ha reproducido teórica y metodológicamente ese supuesto, empíricamente falso y éticamente cuestionable, apoyada en que la Economía sería una “ciencia”. La difusión desde la academia de esa ética crudamente utilitaria, se ha traducido en su aceptación como una ética individual y social legítima y correcta. Modern or “scientific” Economics was developed on a religious assumption: human nature is selfish. Thus, the orthodox point of view of the discipline has reproduced theoretically and methodologically that assumption, empirically false and ethically questionable, supported in that Economics would be a “science”. The dissemination from the academy of that crudely utilitarian ethic, has translated into its acceptance as a legitimate and correct individual and social ethic.

Paths of Glory and the Tyranny of the Greater Good

In Paths of Glory (Stanley Kubrick, 1957) the individual's moral intent is distorted, compromised, and eventually co-opted by the overriding utilitarian ethic of ensuring the survival of the system – the ultimate ‘greater good’ – at all costs. The individual may challenge the system in a noble quest for justice, like Dax. He may hypocritically seek professional advancement from striving to serve it, like Mireau. Or he may cynically manipulate it for political purposes, like Broulard. In each case, the consequences are ultimately the same – the individual is forced to align his particular moral vision, however noble or ignoble, with the imperative of the greater good. The individual may resist or affirm the system and achieve some level of moral consistency and purity, but only momentarily and with limited success. In the end, whatever the value or relevance of the individual conscience to a particular situation, it is overridden by the demands of the greater good.

Sacrifice: an ethical dimension of caring that makes suffering meaningful

This article is intended to raise the question of whether sacrifice can be regarded as constituting a deep ethical structure in the relationship between patient and carer. The significance of sacrifice in a patient-carer relationship cannot, however, be fully understood from the standpoint of the consistently utilitarian ethic that characterizes today’s ethical discourse. Deontological ethics, with its universal principles, also does not provide a suitable point of departure. Ethical recommendations and codices are important and can serve as general sources of knowledge when making decisions, but they should be supplemented by an ethic that takes into consideration contextual and situational factors that make every encounter between patient and carer unique. Caring science research literature presents, on the whole, general agreement on the importance of responsibility and devotion with regard to sense of duty, warmth and genuine engagement in caring. That sacrifice may also constitute an important ethical element in the patient-carer relationship is, however, a contradictory and little considered theme. Caring science literature that deals with sacrifice/self-sacrifice indicates contradictory import. It is nevertheless interesting to notice that both the negative and the positive aspects bring out the importance of the concept for the professional character of caring. The tradition of ideas in medieval Christian mysticism with reference to Lévinas’ ethic of responsibility offers a deeper perspective in which the meaningfulness of sacrifice in the caring relationship can be sought. The theme of sacrifice is not of interest merely as a carer’s ethical outlook, but sacrifice can also be understood as a potential process of transformation towards health. The instinctive or conscious experience of sacrifice on the part of the individual patient can, on a symbolic level, be regarded as analogous to the cultic or religious sacrifice aiming at atonement. Sacrifice appears to the patient as an act of transformation to achieve atonement and healing. Atonement then implies finding meaningfulness in one’s suffering. The concept of sacrifice, understood in a novel way, opens up a deeper dimension in the understanding of suffering and makes caring in ‘the patient’s world’ possible.

Bishop John Wilkins, F .R. S. (1614-72): Analogies of thought-style in the protestant reformation and early modern science

John Wilkins (1614-72) is remembered as a principal founder both of the first enduring scientific society, the Royal Society of London, and of a revelation-free natural religion with a utilitarian ethic, designed to accommodate a broad range of Protestant opinion in a ‘latitudinarian’ Church of England. The projects promoted by Wilkins and his contemporaries formed the later stages of a revolution in European cosmology, with linked theological and scientific elements, culminating in the Newtonian world system. The three-tier Universe of the Middle Ages, with its graded ranks of creatures ruled by hierarchies of spirit-governors, underwent a transformation (initiated by medieval precursors of Copernicus and the Protestant Reformers) into a two-tier cosmos, where material entities formed an ordered array of self-running clockwork engines, wound up at their creation, whereas the spiritual domain came to be represented by a detached all-seeing Power, whose omnipotence was manifest in the awesome design perfected in the creation.